Who is Munawar Faruqui?

Munawar Iqbal Faruqui is a stand-up comedian from Vadodara, Gujarat whom Indore police have arrested in Madhya Pradesh on the first day of January 2021. He was in the city for a stand-up comedy show at a local café on that day. It has been said that the son of a member of the legislative assembly is alleged miscreant who disrupted Munawar Faruqui’s show. Faruqui had to stop the show after five minutes of his performance. Instead of arresting the MLA’s son, it was Faruqui who ultimately landed into police lock-up. The reasons behind his arrest, and here I am not making any revelation is only because he is a Muslim. That is all one is minimally require to get arrested in India. The charges would be framed, later on, depending upon the probable potential of encashment on the Hindu population.

Stand-up comedy as a profession is very new in India. It is only a decade old when the audience started to take stand-up comedy as entertainment. Munawar Faruqui is a new entrant. He came into the scene after his stand-up show videos became viral on the YouTube website. Especially his stand-up on Gujarat Pogrom, Nehru, etc. As with his popularity, it also brings the ill-fame. The current scenario in the country has made a little thing worse. The question is not what is being said, but who is saying. Faruqui, a Muslim is saying uncomfortable truth about this country so bluntly that people becoming serious are bursting out in laughter.

Why is he in the news these days? 

The day on which Munawar Faruqui was arrested, he had just arrived on the stage and just warming up himself with some situational jokes, as the artist did such things to establish rapport with the audiences.

The role of the police, in this case, is also full of prejudice. As per the eyewitness, the police also arrived with ten minutes of the show’s disruption, and instead of stopping the trouble makers, they arrest Munawar Faruqui as the trouble maker.

Why Faruqui?

The famous novelist John Le Carr once said, “Nationalism is quite different from patriotism. For Nationalism, you need enemies.” In India’s context, the Muslims are the enemies of the Hindutva-majoritarianism who comprise the fourteen per cent of the country’s population. As being a Muslim is a crime these days, the crime of Munawar Faruqui is that he is a Muslim. Since he was arrested, the social media website twitter.com is engaged in trends like for Faruqui and Against the Faruqui. However, as the arrest of Faruqui is not the first case, since 2014, this has become a new normal in India, which is creating an imaginary enemy.

The Muslims are bait for the majority Hindu population. There are thousands of problems and crises in this country, but the government and its policies specifically target the Muslim minorities, be it the triple Talaq, National Register for Citizen, Citizenship Amendment Act. The Gujarat Pogrom of 2002, in which Muslims were the victims. The Hindutva terrorist showcase that unforgivable bloodbath of Muslims as something of an achievement. Their leaders see it as that they have taught Muslims a lesson. Such a terrible environment may lead the country to a self-destructive path harmful to our India.

This write up is for showing solidarity with Munawar Faruqui.